Basically what i’m trying to do is create a good looking gun turret using low poly methods. Naturally that will mostly comprise of good texturing (something i really need to gain more experience in); this project should kick start me in the right direction for the future. One of my goals was to not go over 3000 quads/tris (changed from 5000 which seemed unecessary after seeing what others managed to do with fewer; the mech by Tef was a real help in areas) and have at the end a short render time- haven’t decided what yet. I’ll start thinking about time at the end however; with the low numbers and with no raytracing it should be no problem. Until then expect the little fancy effects to be left in to make the render seem more substantial though.
So here are two renders of the model as it stands, blender internal with AO and RayTracing on:
The colour was just used to flush out any problems with the mesh. Any crits/suggestions would be welcome.
Nice render & model. Does the belt on the side mean the turret can’t turn? The feet are not firm on the ground. Wondering what this would look like if rendered with world colour a shade of grey lighter than the ground plane.
Thanks for the comments guys. Yeah the belt atm does restrict the movement of the main cannon; that should be fixed when i add the last few details later though. The plane was really a last minute idea, plus it was getting late; i’ll make that part more complete once the legs are finished.
Yeah i began to think that too after i looked at some clips of the actual weapon in combat. Maybe if i lower the centre of gravity a bit and bulk the legs up a tad it will look more suitable.
I still think the modeling looks okay, but then again, it is hard to tell how it’s goin to look like in the end. Geometry, materials and visual weight can be faked with efficient texturing. A reference pic would be great though
Well i made several changes, i lowered the turret, added some extra armour, changed suport parts in areas and added some little details just to give more to the model. Still got a few polys spare to play around with also.
Here’s the progress, i’ll start to texture when i feel that i’ve finished i think (that and when i can get the GIMP to work on my Mac):
I’ll edit later with the pics in full as i’m having some server trouble trying to host them.
Looks great, it’s a bit high poly for gun turret. If it’s for a movie then it’s a good amount, but for a game it’s way too detailed.
Most of the time in games you only see a gun turret for a few seconds before either you blow it up or it cuts you to pieces. So it’s not really worth the time and attention to create a overly detailed object.
For mechanical deign, if you want low poly (less than 1000) steer clear of chain guns and any type of tubes. Say for the legs you would be better going for a nice chunky/blocky articulated look. You could then add lots of normal mapping details.
The problem with tubes it that they have to be quite high poly to look good, and even then it’s difficult to make them look more detailed than they actually are. All you can do is add stripes or dimples.
Looks cool though, I’d be interested to see how you go with the texturing.
Yeah i wasn’t really intending for it to be used in a game. It’d probably be more suited for an animation; the numbers aren’t high though so it’s still a quick render. There are no subsurf options activated meaning it’s a realistic and economical number. The modelling is basically complete; just a few tweaks here and there with a few of the existing parts.
